The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (42 page)

“Yes.” The walk from the spring seemed to grow longer.

“Dad’s afraid. Of the Caydarmen.” Steban sounded disappointed.

“With good reason, I imagine.” Tain hadn’t met any of the Baron’s
mercenaries. He hadn’t met any of the neighbors, either. None had
come calling. He hadn’t done any visiting during his reconnaissances.

“Soldiers aren’t ever afraid.”

Tain chuckled. “Wrong, Steban. Soldiers are always afraid. We just
learn to handle fear. Your dad didn’t have to learn when you lived in
the city. He’s trying to catch up now.”

“I’d show those Caydarmen. Like I showed that wolf.”

“There was only one wolf, Steban. There’re a lot of Caydarmen.”

“Only seven. And the Witch.”

“Seven? And a witch?”

“Sure. Torfin. Bodel. Grimnir. Olag. I don’t remember the others.”

“What about this witch? Who’s she?”

Steban wouldn’t answer for a while. Then, “She tells them what to
do. Dad says the Baron was all right till she went to the Tower.”

“Ah.” So. Another fragment of puzzle. Who would have thought
this quiet green land, so sparsely settled, could be so taut and
mysterious?

Tain tried pumping Steban, but the boy clammed up about the
Baron.

“Do you think Pa’s a coward, Tain?”

“No. He came to the Zemstvi. It takes courage for a man to leave
everything just on the chance he might make a better life someplace
else.”

Steban stopped and stared at him. There had been a lot of emotion
in his voice. “Like you did?”

“Yes. Like I did. I thought about it a long time.”

“Oh.”

“This ought to be enough water. Let’s go back to the house.” He
glanced at the sky.

“Going to rain,” he said as they went inside.

“Uhm,” Toma grunted. He finished one jar and started another.
Tain smiled thinly. Kleckla wouldn’t be going out tonight. He turned
his smile on Rula.

She smiled back. “Maybe you’d better sleep here. The barn leaks.”

“I’ll be all right. I patched it some yesterday morning.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Old habits die hard. Well, the sheep are watered, I’m going to
turn in.”

“Tain?”

He paused at the door.

“Thanks.”

He ducked into the night. Misty raindrops kissed his cheeks. A
rising wind quarreled with itself in the grove.

He performed the Soldier’s Ritual, then lay back on the straw
pallet he had fashioned. But sleep wouldn’t come.

VIII

The roan quivered between his knees as they descended the hill.
It wasn’t because of the wind and cold rain. The animal sensed the
excitement and uncertainty of its rider.

Tain guided the animal into a brushy gully, dismounted, told the
horse to wait. He moved fifty yards downslope, sat down against a
boulder. So still did he remain that he seemed to become one with
the stone.

The Kosku stead looked peaceful to an untrained eye. Just a quiet
rural place passing a sleepy night.

But Tain felt the wakefulness there. Someone was watching the
night. He could taste their fear and determination.

The Caydarmen came an hour later. There were three of them,
bearing torches. They didn’t care who saw them. They came down
the hill from behind Tain and passed within fifty yards of him. None
noticed him.

They were big men. The one with the horn helm, on the paint,
Tain recognized as the Torfin he had seen before. The second was
much larger than the first. The third, riding between them, was a
slight, small figure in black.

The Witch. Tain knew that before she entered his vision. He had
sensed her raw, untrained strength minutes earlier. Now he could feel
the dread of her companions.

The wild adept needed to be feared. She was like as untrained
elephant, ignorant of her own strength. And in her potential for
misuse of the Power she was more dangerous to herself than to anyone
she threatened.

Tain didn’t doubt that fear was her primary control over the Baron
and his men. She would cajole, pout, and hurt, like a spoiled child....

She
was
very young. Tain could sense no maturity in her at all.

The man with the horns dismounted and pounded on the Kosku
door with the butt of a dagger. “Kosku. Open in the name of Baron
Caydar.”

“Go to Hell.”

Tain almost laughed.

The reply, spoken almost gently, came from the mouth of a man
beyond fear. The Caydarmen sensed it, too, and seemed bewildered.
That was what amused Tain so.

“Kosku, you’ve been fined three sheep, three goats, and five geese
for talking sedition. We’ve come to collect.”

“The thieves bargain now? You were demanding five, five, and ten
the other day.”

“Five sheep, five goats, and ten geese, then,” Torfin replied,
chagrined.

“Get the hell off my land.”

“Kosku....”

Assessing the voice. Tain identified Torfin as a decent man trapped
by circumstance. Torfin didn’t want trouble.

“Produce the animals, Kosku,” said the second man. “Or I’ll come
after them.”

This one wasn’t a decent sort. His tone shrieked bully and sadist.
This one
wanted
Kosku to resist.

“Come ahead, Grimnir. Come ahead.” The cabin door flung open.
An older man appeared. He leaned on a long, heavy quarterstaff.
“Come to me, you Trolledyngjan dog puke. You sniffer at the skirts of
whores.”

Kosku, Tain decided, was no ex-clerk. He was old, but the hardness
of a man of action glimmered through the gray. His muscles were taut
and strong. He would know how to handle his staff.

Grimnir wasn’t inclined to test him immediately.

The Witch urged her mount forward.

“You don’t frighten me, little slut. I know you. I won’t appease
your greed.”

Her hands rose before her, black-gloved fingers writhing like
snakes. Sudden emerald sparks leapt from tip to tip.

Kosku laughed.

His staff darted too swiftly for the eye to follow. Its iron-shod tip
struck the Witch’s horse between the nostrils.

It shrieked, reared. The woman tumbled into the mud. Green
sparks zigzagged over her dark clothing. She spewed curses like a
broken oath-sack.

Torfin swung his torch at the old man.

The staff’s tip caught him squarely in the forehead. He sagged.

“Kosku, you shouldn’t have done that,” Grimnir snarled. He
dismounted, drew his sword. The old man fled, slammed his door.

Grimnir recovered Torfin’s torch, tossed it onto the thatch of
Kosku’s home. He helped the Witch and Torfin mount, then tossed
his own torch.

Tain was inclined to aid the old man, but didn’t move. He had left
his weapons behind in case he encountered this urge.

He didn’t need weapons to fight and kill, but he suspected,
considering Kosku’s reaction, that Grimnir was good with a sword. It
didn’t seem likely that an unarmed man could take him.

And there was the Witch, whose self-taught skill he couldn’t
estimate.

She had had enough. Despite Grimnir’s protests, she started back
the way they had come.

Tain watched them pass. The Witch’s eyes jerked his way, as if she
were startled, but she saw nothing. She relaxed. Tain listened to them
over the ridge before moving.

The wet thatch didn’t burn well, but it burned. Tain strode down,
filled a bucket from a sheep trough, tossed water onto the blaze. A
half-dozen throws finished it.

The rainfall was picking up. Tain returned to the roan conscious
that eyes were watching him go.

He swung onto the gelding, whispered. The horse began stalking
the Caydarmen.

They weren’t hurrying. It was two hours before Tain discerned the
deeper darkness of the Tower through the rain. His quarry passed
inside without his having learned anything. He circled the structure
once.

The squat, square tower was only slightly taller than it was wide.
It was very old, antedating Iwa Skolovda. Tain assumed that it had
been erected by Imperial engineers when Ilkazar had ruled Shara. A
watchtower to support patrols in the borderlands.

Shara had always been a frontier.

Similar structures dotted the west. Ilkazar’s advance could be
chronicled by their architectural styles.

IX

Toma was in a foul mood next morning. Toma was suffering from more
than a hangover. Come mid-morning he abandoned his tools, donned
a jacket and collected his staff. He strode off toward the village.

He had hardly vanished when Rula joined Tain. “Thanks for last
night,” she said.

Tain spread his hands in an “it was nothing” gesture. “I don’t think
you had to worry.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He averted his gaze shyly.

“He’s gone to find out what happened.”

“I know. He feels responsible.”

“He’s not responsible for Kosku’s sins.”

“We’re all responsible to one another, Rula. His feelings are genuine.
My opinion is, he wants to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“I think he wants to prove something. I’m not sure why. Or to
whom. Maybe to himself.”

“Just because they blame him....” Her gaze snapped up and away,
toward the spring. Tain turned slowly.

A Caydarman on a painted horse was descending the slope.
“Torfin?” Today he wore no helmet.

“Oh!” Rula gasped. “Toma must have said something yesterday.”

Tain could sense the unreasoning fear in her. It refused to let the
Caydarman be anything but evil. “You go inside. I’ll handle him.”

She ran.

Tain set his tools aside, wiped his hands, ambled toward the spring.
The Caydarman had entered the grove. He was watering his mount.

“Good morning.”

The Caydarman looked up. “Good morning.”

He’s young, Tain thought. Nineteen or twenty. But he had scars.

The youth took in Tain’s size and catlike movements.

Tain noted the Caydarman’s pale blue eyes and long blond hair,
and the strength pent in his rather average-appearing body. He was
tall, but not massive like Grimnir.

“Torfin Hakesson,” the youth offered. “The Baron’s man.”

“Tain. My father’s name I don’t know.”

A slight smile crossed Torfin’s lips. “You’re new here.”

“Just passing through. Kleckla needed help with his house. I have
the skills. He asked me to stay on for a while.”

Torfin nodded. “You’re the man with the big roan? I saw you the
other day.”

Tain smiled. “And I you. Several times. Why’re you so far from
home?”

“My father chose a losing cause. I drifted. The Baron offered me
work. I came to the Zemstvi.”

“I’ve heard that Trolledyngjans are terse. Never have I heard a life
so simply sketched.”

“And you?”

“Much the same. Leaving unhappiness behind, pursuing something
that probably doesn’t exist.”

“The Baron might take you on.”

“No. Our thinking diverges on too many things.”

“I thought so myself, once. I still do, in a way. But you don’t have
many choices when your only talent is sword work.”

“A sad truth. Did you want something in particular?”

“No. Just patrolling. Watering the horse. Them.” He jerked his
head toward the house. “They’re well?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The youth eyed the stead. “Looks like you’ve gotten
things mov
ing.”